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About Me

My (nick)name is Moz and this blog was originally about my travails, tribulations and (occasional) small successes while writing my Honours thesis and fighting the demons of my mental illness. Said thesis was nicknamed Frankie and this is my first blog. These days I am working on my Masters thesis, and still trying to string words together that make some sense.
My financial vices include a good cup of coffee, live music, and buying real newspapers so I can do the crossword. Unsurprisingly I love books, and am a bit obsessed with writing the perfect letter and making an even more perfect mix CD. I earn part of my living as a wedding singer in Sydney, Australia, but long term I hope to research, write and teach as an academic, and travel further than interstate. David Bowie once referred to me as 'the quintessential girl from Ipanema' - it briefly made my mother proud.

Stand and Deliver

It’s crunch time here. Time to step up, to kick it into the
next gear. The time when I become a man. The time when I leave cliché behind
and, you know, do it right.

Except that the anxiety is crippling me and I am FREAKING
OUT. It seems that when the pressure gets really bad I am not rising to the
challenge but just folding like a cheap card table. I knew this time was coming
and unfortunately there was nothing much I could do but try and be ready for
it.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how I got here, with this
year and everything. It’s ten years since I started university for the first
time and since I first made plans to do Honours in history. Back then I was planning
to do double Honours – a thesis year for history, and another one in Italian. I
thought that I would probably do post-grad law, probably not at the institution
I was attending, and that when I did that my life would get better. Because
university was letting me down.

I was the most miserable fuck at school you ever met. I know
everyone says that, and it’s probably true more often than not, but I really
was. I cried so easily and so often, I was that
student in class that everybody hates because they know all the answers and
never shut up, and the only people I was friendly with were in other years and
I came to know through music. And that last bit only happened my last four
years after I moved schools. The situation at the house (I never called it home) was untenable and often violent.
Work was another ball game – for the first time I had friends, a couple of whom
were close in age to me, but it was also the scene for some of the worst stuff
that has ever happened to me.

I tell the school story only to illustrate that university,
in my mind, was going to solve all my problems. I was told teachers who cared
about me that university was where I was meant to be, that intellectually and
emotionally it would satisfy me. I came
to see uni as a field of dreams, where I would be happy, where my classes would
all be incredible, where I would have friends, where I would do well and be a
success.

And of course it wasn’t like that. My subjects were either
very difficult or not demanding at all. The grading scale at university was a shock
to the system, I struggled with having to type all my work (I didn’t have my
own computer) and I was working far too much for far too little. The trauma
that happened to me two years earlier was coming back to haunt me and I was on
the fence about my singing – I knew I had to make a decision about whether to
continue or not. To top it off I ended up coming down with glandular fever
(that’s mono to you Yanks). And I didn’t realise until after.

Uni did eventually get better. I found out in third year
that it was possible to have great classes and make wonderful friends. But then
my life came apart at the seams and I dropped out, never even officially
deferring properly. The darkness consumed my life so completely that everything
before seemed better by comparison, which of course was ridiculous. It was just
that I couldn’t cope anymore at all.

And now I’m back (from outer space). And this year I am
having the best classes I have ever had, mostly full of incredible people. I am
making new friends and keeping old ones, I have a mentor who is making it clear
that he is in my life for the long haul*, my relationship with my sister is mostly
as I have always wanted it and I am getting the help I need for my illness.

So I’m trying to remember these good things even while I try
to breathe again after a panic attack that I had to run out of class to give in
to. I try to remember how content this work makes me even while the anxiety
keeps me up for days at a time and yet prevents me from concentrating. I try to
remember what my mentor is teaching me by example: that being soft and
compassionate is a strength, not a weakness, and one that makes me better at
what I do.

So I’m going to do my best with what I have, in the time I
have. This year is a privilege and I know how lucky I am. So as much as I hate
these deadlines, I am working on things that are important and that have
meaning. For the first time in a long time I have more to be grateful for than
not. I’m hoping that knowledge, and that
gratitude, keeps my head above water.

*more on that another time.

This was going to be a
bitchy post but I hope it became something better than that. Sorry for all the
sad stories.

3 comments:

Ah Moz... I thought there might be something going on to explain the relative silence. I feel for you and hope that you can keep that positive voice in your head when you have moments where it all feels too much.

Taking on such a massive task as a thesis is something I am in awe of. Keep on writing your feelings out - I find it makes me feel better instantly.

I'm glad you weren't scared off so much by round 1 that you never attempted round 2. A lot of it is a different set of people and a different set of circumstances, yes, but you were the driving force behind all the good turns life has taken. Even though it probably doesn't feel like that some of the time. Strength and power and emotion, good lady!